The present invention relates to a recording/reproduction or a reproduction or a recording apparatus for recording and/or reproducing images and audio data or controlling the reproduction or recording, or more in particular to a recording/reproduction or a recording or a reproduction apparatus for controlling the recording/reproduction or reproduction or recording of a recording medium by duplication management information.
The DVD-ROM is a recording medium having a capacity about seven times as large as the CD-ROM. The DVD-ROM can record even movie software as well as the program code for personal computers (PC) by compressing video and audio data. The recording media for recording data on DVD include DVD-RAM, DVD-R and DVD-RW. A large amount of data can be recorded in these media, and therefore it is necessary to prevent the illegal digital duplication of the movie software or the like as such. Therefore, the technique for preventing the illegal duplication plays an important role for this purpose.
Such techniques include an electronic watermark, the standardization of which is described in “Nikkei Electronics”, pp. 31–32, May 18, 1998, published by Nikkei BP Co., Ltd.
Apart from the electronic watermark technique, the technique for preventing the illegal duplication in data exchange between equipment using IEEE1394 is also described in the Mar. 23, 1998 issue of “Nikkei Electronics”, pp. 47–53, published by Nikkei BP.
With the devices such as the DVD-RAM drive which includes digital/analog input/output means, however, it is difficult to prevent illegal duplication with these techniques alone. Such techniques are even sometimes easily avoided. Also, data exchange within the personal computer is more complicated, often generating a loophole of duplication control.
In view of this, it is necessary to configure a system using an appropriate combination of a plurality of duplication control techniques including the watermark technique and the IEEE1394 antiduplication technique